Archive for the ‘Conferences, Workshops & Events’ Category

Stay tuned for exciting announcements and registration for the first Girls’ Hackathon @ UBC! We invite anyone in grades 8-12 who identifies as a girl or is genuinely interested to engage in an all-girl hackathon (we have an inclusive view of the word “girl” and we welcome trans, genderqueer, and non-binary youth). No prior coding experience is required. The event will have collaborative and competitive hacking challenges that involve creative computing, coding for social change, and wearable technologies.

My colleague Rachel and I developed a workshop for integrating, implementing, and assessing Design & Technology curriculum in K-12 classrooms. A special thank you to all of the 100+ attendees who pre-registered. As a result of your interest and participation, our two hour session was moved to a breathtaking loft in the Vancouver Convention Centre.

The unique meeting room featured an artistic wood wall and three floor to ceiling glass walls with natural lighting to illuminate all of our learning, thinking, and playing with D & T.

Research questions that I am exploring: How might we design social media and social networks to foster youth civic engagement and expression? How do we enable children and other minority voices to find their voice and make it heard around the world? How do we measures of the design, development, and feasibility of technology-enabled learning environments for children and youth in challenging contexts (e.g., urban slum areas, remote villages, aboriginal reserves, and socially or economically disadvantaged locations)?

It was exciting to be part of the Vancouver Mini Maker Faire 2016 Presentation Series @ the PNE Forum. I discussed the history, impact, and significance of the maker education movement and shared highlights from the makerspaces I’ve built with girls @ 101 Technology Fun (UBC campus).

The take-away message from my talk: all children deserve opportunities to be inventors, creators, and makers of the technologies that make our world, and thereby take part in changing who controls, owns, and shapes our future.

Congrats to the HWL Research Team for an excellent symposium at CSSE 2016. I presented my research on The Tween Empowerment & Advocacy Methodology (TEAM).

My second talk was Designing a Makerspace with Youth: Ways, Means, Ends & Beginnings. Please feel welcome to ask me about the research I’m doing to empower children and youth worldwide through education in technology.

If there’s one event that you should visit during the centennial celebrations, this one promises to be stimulating, creatively inspiring, and ultimately a fascinating experience all around. The UBC Centennial Maker Faire offers a venue for UBC makers to showcase their projects, engage with others, and provide insight into the driving forces that make them tick. Creative credit to Bill Pickard for designing the eye-catching poster with the charming knitting robot!

Today marks 41 years since the UN began celebrating women’s achievements on March 8. Gender equity is at the heart of human rights. Excellent progress has been made, but we still have a long way to go to achieve gender parity in terms of economic opportunities, access to education and health care, and political influence/voice within households and society.

A diverse and inclusive workforce is important to drive innovation in our global community. At current rates of change, however, it will take another 118 years to close the global economic gap and attain gender justice.

I’m in Washington, DC today for ITEEA 2016. I just gave a talk on a topic that is extremely important to me: collaborating to build a diverse STEM-literate society. I argued about the need to include youth voice and choice in defining new standards for technological literacy. I brought down the house!! Literally, the lights went off and for awhile I spoke in the dark… with the serendipity of a dramatic situation to captivate the focussed attention of my audience.

This is a celebration of hands-on digital literacy for makers of all ages! Dig in and play with machines in our open creative space, learn about the city’s various learning pathways, and engage your brain’s experimental side. This event will be a collaborative and creativity-inspiring experience for makers of all ages who are interested in tinkering and learning new things. Everybody is welcome so bring your kids, your grandpa, and your friends to the VPL Inspiration Lab!

I immediately knew that I was going to give a fantastic talk when I walked into the TELUS Spark Science Theatre… I realized that the track lighting illuminating the theatre matched perfectly with the violet LED earrings glowing in my ears! I presented artifacts and stories created by my 101 Technology Fun team, and discussed fun ways for empowering girls to build, code, hack, make, and create change.